It’s a busy week for the badminton world, with some of the Badminton World Federation’s top tournament taking place all over the world. This week, three Australian players are in action at the Lingshui China Masters 2019 in the province of Hainan – this is a BWF Tour Super 100 event.
Opening the event, Australia’s Jingtong Chen was one of the first matches on court competing in the men’s doubles event with Venezuelan shuttler, Jhonatan Wu Zheng against England’s Farouk Hassan and Chun Kar Lung. The dual-nationality pair got off to a flying start, taking the first end 21-14 before losing the second in setting 23-21. Chen and Zheng recouped and found their form in the third, going on to take the third and final end 21-6. With only one match standing in their way of making the main draw, the pair came up against the Chinese Taipei pair, Lin Chun-Yi and Yu Sheng Po. The pair managed to keep the game even for the first half of the first game before Chun-Yi and Sheng Po ran away with the victory 21-14 21-14 over 23 minutes.
Jingtong Chen was in action later in the day as the fourth seed in the men’s singles qualification draw. However, Chen wasn’t able to find the form required against China’s Wu Kaian, going down in 22 minutes 21-6 21-4.
Australia’s Daniel Fan was also in singles action in the evening against Malaysia’s Cheam June Wei, who sits at 73 in the world rankings – exactly 100 places higher than Fan. Playing for the first time in China, Fan embraced the experience of playing in the badminton-crazed nation but wasn’t able to secure a win against the Malaysian, who won 21-13 21-14 in thirty minutes.
“In the first set I was still trying to find my groove adjusting to the draft in such a big hall. I found my rhythm in the second set and went up at the interval, but then my opponent started to push the pace. I became impatient and made a lot of unforced errors and my opponent took the second set. There are plenty of good things to take away from this experience when going back to training, I need to improve my focus and patience.
It’s my first time playing in China and their hospitality has been great! The organisation of the tournament is really great. We are staying at the hotel that the Chinese national team own and use for their training where we also get to practice – it is extremely professional. I hope to be back next year.” – Daniel Fan.
Australia’s Olympian, Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen is in the main draw for the women’s singles and will be competing against China’s Ji Shuting at 3.20pm, local time.
You can keep track of the latest draws and results on Tournament Software.
